I love the Articles Plugin. See it in action here at the Grow Your Writing Business Key Articles Page.

Unlike a sitemap, the Articles Plugin does not show every article, which is one of the most useful features. You can select which articles you want to feature. This allows you to highlight your key posts or pillar articles… a sort of “Best of… ” approach. Articles appear on your Key Articles page under sub headings which match your blog categories. Look for this article, “10 Reasons Why I Love the Articles Plugin” under Cool Tools on my Key Articles page.

I have already found click throughs on my Key Articles page. Readers are finding articles and staying on the site longer. As a blogger, I love the flexibility it offers with changing choices of key articles, not to mention the SEO benefits of internal linking.

How The Article Plugin Works

You need to add a link to a static page (not a post). My Key Articles link is in the top navigation, right at the top right of my template. The article plugin adds a custom field box under your WordPress editor where you write your post. You simply choose “article” from the drop down menu, add a value of “1″ in the value field (all clearly labelled), and then click update. When you finish the article, you save and publish. There are instructions with the plugin.

Key Articles Display Options

All options can be selected in the WP control panel. You can choose to have 2, 3 or 4 columns. I guess this will depend on personal preference and your template. Experimenting is straighforward. Choose, save and view. If you don’t like it, make another choice and save. I tried 2 columns, but it was far too crowded, so I went back to a single column.

Advantages of the Articles Plugin

1. Control the length of your key articles listing, by removing or adding articles.
2. Change your choice of key articles listed to reflect e.g. changes in site focus or better articles
3. Add new categories to your blog, and the Key Articles listing automatically updates with new subheadings
4. Articles can be listed under more than one category or you can choose not to feature certain categories in the listing
5. Reader friendly as all categories or subheadings are clearly labelled

As a blogger, the at a glance listing from the Articles Plugin also made me think about -

6. Being more diligent with adding articles to both the best categories, and a great number of relevant categories
7. Adding new, more specific categories to make it easier for readers to quickly locate relevant posts
8. The balance of content coverage in each category
9. Where there are gaps in content coverage and which articles drew the most comments
10. Which article titles could be improved for both signalling the topic to the reader and for SEO

The Articles Plugin was written by Alex King. The download link is about half way down the page on his site.

Cool Tools